38 Earth Days later ...

Aberdeen students take lead cleaning up school grounds

Aberdeen students take lead cleaning up school grounds

April 23, 2008|By Russ Keen, rkeen@aberdeennews.com

Earth Day was a time for action and education on Tuesday in Aberdeen, particularly at schools and colleges. “Nobody can take a giant leap and change the world, but everybody has to do their part,” said Beth Bittner, 19, of Aberdeen, a nursing student at Presentation College. “In the long run, it will help,” said Tyler Harrell, 21, of Aberdeen, a biology major at PC. They were among a group of PC students who cleaned trash from campus grounds on Tuesday evening. Also, everyone needs to be conscious of the amount of waste society produces, said Britt Chohon, coordinator of student activities and campus ministry at PC and part of the clean-up team. Elsewhere in the city, third-grade teacher Debbie Hepper at May Overby Elementary School, incorporated Earth Day themes into every single lesson she taught on Tuesday, from math to language arts. Hepper said she started compiling materials about a year ago for her daylong Earth Day classroom adventure on Tuesday. At Simmons Middle School, conservation district leaders, including district forester Craig Brown of Watertown, talked to sixth-graders about the importance of trees. April 22, 2009, should be a significant Earth Day at Simmons Middle School. The school grounds will need landscaping at that time because new construction at the school will be finished by then, said sixth-grade teacher Jim Appl. “We hope to plant some trees on this day next year,” he said. Down the street a couple of blocks from the middle school, Simmons Elementary School students and staff spent part of Tuesday afternoon cleaning up their school's grounds. At Northern State University, campuswide cleanup took place organized by the university's Residence Life Department. The halls also had an ice cream social for their residents to celebrate their participation in the first Recyclemania program, 10-week competition among colleges nationwide to collect paper and corrugated cardboard for recycling. Observances will continue. On Friday, an Earth Day Carnival will take place at Holgate Middle School under the leadership of teacher Brian Kringen. The first Earth Day was celebrated April 22, 1970, the year that President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency to improve the environment and public health. The federal government annually recognizes Earth Day, April 22, as a time to remind everyone to make environmentally conscious choices. For more information, visit www.epa.gov/earthday.